Developing a comprehensive career development scale for public health nurses in Japan

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to develop a scale that can comprehensively measure public health nurses'(PHNs) career development and to verify the validity and reliability of that scale.

DESIGN AND SAMPLES

This study is a cross-sectional investigation. The participants were 1,009 PHNs working in a government facility in Japan. A total of 586 participants who had been working for more than 3 years as PHNs were analyzed.

MEASUREMENTS

Anonymous self-response questionnaires included items on professional awareness, practical competency, and job satisfaction. We conducted exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to clarify the construct validity of the scale. The reliability was examined by the Cronbach's α coefficient. The validity was examined by an external reference relevant validity and the known-group method.

RESULTS

The scale was structured with 32 items covering three factors: "community activities, policy, and management," "PHN identity," and "foundations as a PHN." The Cronbach's α coefficients were all greater than 0.9. In confirmatory factor analysis, the scale showed acceptable goodness of fit.

CONCLUSIONS

The comprehensive career development scale for PHNs proved its reliability and validity. This scale may be useful to promote PHN identity and competency comprehensively in basic education and in-charge education.

Attitudes and values expected of public health nursing students at graduation: A delphi study

BACKGROUND

The skills and knowledge of the competencies expected of public health nursing (PHN) students at graduation have been clarified; however, the attitudes and values have not yet been studied in Japan.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study was to identify and reach a consensus among experts on the attitudes and values expected of PHN students at graduation.

DESIGN

This survey was conducted as a two-stage Delphi study.

PARTICIPANTS

We selected the following experts: 248 teachers in the faculty of public health nursing at a university as academic experts, and 250 public health nurses who were also experienced clinical instructors as clinical experts.

METHODS

The round 1 mailed survey was conducted using a questionnaire about the necessity and importance of attitudes and values, and 211 experts responded (42.4%, clinical; n = 124, academic; n = 87). In the Round 2 survey, the experts consisted of 60.2% of the round 1 participants (clinical; n = 73, academic; n = 54). Descriptive statistics were used for multiple imputation.

RESULTS

We identified a total of 13 attitudes and values expected of PHN students, and reached ≥90% consensus for most items (except for one). Regarding the expected achievement level at graduation, there was no difference between clinical and academic experts except for one item.

CONCLUSIONS

Consensus was clearly achieved for 13 attitudes and values expected of PHN students, as well as importance and expected achievement level at graduation. In the future, it is important to examine strategies that can effectively develop these attitudes and values through basic and continuous education.